Max Brand (23 page)

"I'll try to tell you from the first. She started out for you with
Dick Wilbur for a guide."

"Good old Dick, God bless him! I'll fill all his pockets with gold for
that; and he loves her, you know."

"You'll never see Dick Wilbur again. On the first night they camped
she missed him when he went for water. She went down after a while and
saw the mark of his body on the sand. He never appeared again."

"Who was it?"

"Listen. The next morning she woke up and found that someone had
taken care of the fire while she slept, and her pack was lashed on one
of the saddles. She rode on that day and came at night to a camp-fire
with a bed of boughs near it and no one in sight. She took that camp
for herself and no one showed up.

"Don't you see? Someone was following her up the valley and taking
care of the poor baby on the way. Someone who was afraid to let
himself be seen. Perhaps it was the man who killed Dick Wilbur without
a sound there beside the river; perhaps as Dick died he told the man
who killed him about the lonely girl and this other man was white
enough to help Mary.

"But all Mary ever saw of him was that second night when she thought
she saw a streak of white, traveling like a galloping horse, that
disappeared over a hill and into the trees—"

"A streak of white—"

"Yes, yes! The white horse—McGurk!"

"McGurk!" repeated Pierre stupidly; then: "And you knew she would be
going out to him when she left this house?"

"I knew—Pierre—don't look at me like that—I knew that it would be
murder to let you cross with McGurk. You're the last of seven—he's a
devil—no man—"

"And you let her go out into the night—to him."

She clung to a last thread of hope: "If you met him and killed him
with the luck of the cross it would bring equal bad luck on someone
you love—on the girl, Pierre!"

He was merely repeating stupidly: "You let her go out—to him—in the
night! She's in his arms now—you devil—you tiger—"

She threw herself down and clung about his knees with hysterical
strength.

He tore the little cross from his neck and flung it into her upturned
face.

"Don't make me put my hands on you, Jack. Let me go!" There was no
need to tear her grasp away. She crumpled and slipped sidewise to the
floor. He leaned over and shook her violently by the shoulder.

"Which way did she ride? Which way did they ride?"

She whispered: "Down the valley, Pierre; down the valley; I swear they
rode that way."

And as she lay in a half swoon she heard the faint clatter of
galloping hoofs over the rocks and a wild voice yelling, fainter and
fainter with distance: "McGurk!"

It came back to her like a threat; it beat at her ears and roused her,
that continually diminishing cry: "McGurk!" It went down the valley,
and Mary Brown, and McGurk with her, perhaps, had gone up the gorge,
but it would be a matter of a short time before Pierre le Rouge
discovered that there was no camp-fire to be sighted in the lower
valley and whirled to storm back up the canyon with that battle-cry:
"McGurk!" still on his lips.

And if the two met she knew the result. Seven strong men had ridden
together, fought together, and one by one they had fallen, disappeared
like the white smoke of the camp-fire, jerked off into thin air by the
wind, until only one remained.

How clearly she could see them all! Bud Mansie, meager, lean, with a
shifting eye; Garry Patterson, of the red, good-natured face; Phil
Branch, stolid and short and muscled like a giant; Handsome Dick
Wilbur on his racing bay; Black Gandil, with his villainies from the
South Seas like an invisible mantle of awe about him; and her father,
the stalwart, gray Boone.

All these had gone, and there remained only Pierre le Rouge to follow
in the steps of the six who had gone before.

She crawled to the door, feeble in mind and shuddering of body like a
runner who has spent his last energy in a long race, and drew it open.
The wind blew up the valley from the Old Crow, but no sound came back
to her, no calling from Pierre; and over her rose the black pyramid of
the western peak of the Twin Bears like a monstrous nose pointing
stiffly toward the stars.

She closed the door, dragged herself back to her feet, and stood with
her shoulders leaning against the wall. Her weakness was not
weariness—it was as if something had been taken from her. She
wondered at herself somewhat vaguely. Surely she had never been like
this before, with the singular coldness about her heart and the
feeling of loss, of infinite loss.

What had she lost? She began to search her mind for an answer. Then
she smiled uncertainly, a wan, small smile. It was very clear; what
she had lost was all interest in life and all hope for the brave
tomorrow. Nothing remained of all those lovely dreams which she had
built up by day and night about the figure of Pierre le Rouge. He was
gone, and the bright-colored bubble she had blown vanished at once.

She felt a slight pain at her forehead and then remembered the cross
which Pierre had thrown into her face. Casting that away he had thrown
his faintest chance of victory with it; it would be a slaughter, not a
battle, and red-handed McGurk would leave one more foe behind him.

But looking down she found the cross and picked up the shining bit
of metal; it seemed as if she held the greater part of Pierre le Rouge
in her hands. She raised the cross to her lips.

When she fastened the cross about her throat it was with no
exultation, but like one who places over his heart a last memorial of
the dead; a consecration, like the red sign or the white which the
crusaders wore on the covers of their shields.

Then she took from her breast the spray of autumn leaves. He had not
noticed them, yet perhaps they had helped to make him happy when he
came into the cabin that night, so she placed the spray on the table.
Next she unpinned the great rubies from her throat and let her eye
linger over them for a moment. They were chosen stones, a lure and a
challenge at once.

The first thought of what she must do came to Jacqueline then, but not
in an overwhelming tide—it was rather a small voice that whispered in
her heart.

Last, she took from her bosom the glove of the yellow-haired girl.
Compared with her stanch riding gloves, how small was this! Yet, when
she tried it, it slipped easily on her hand. This she laid in that
little pile, for these were the things which Pierre would wish to find
if by some miracle he came back from the battle. The spray, perhaps,
he would not understand; and yet he might. She pressed both hands to
her breast and drew a long breath, for her heart was breaking. Through
her misted eyes she could barely see the shimmer of the cross.

She dropped to her knees, and twisted her hands together in agony. It
was prayer. There were no words to it, but it was prayer, a wild
appeal for aid.

That aid came in the form of a calm that swept on her like the flood
of a clear moonlight over a storm-beaten landscape. The whisper which
had come to her before was now a solemn-speaking voice, and she knew
what she must do. She could not keep the two men apart, but she
might reach McGurk before and strike him down by stealth, by craft,
any way to kill that man as terrible as a devil, as invulnerable as
a ghost.

This she might do in the heart of the night, and afterward she might
have the courage left to tell the girl the truth and then creep off
somewhere and let this steady pain burn its way out of her heart.

Once she had reached a decision, it was characteristic that she moved
swiftly. Also, there was cause for haste, for by this time Pierre must
have discovered that there was no one in the lower reaches of the
gorge and would be galloping back with all the speed of the
cream-colored mare which even McGurk's white horse could not match.

She ran from the cabin and into the little lean-to behind it where the
horses were tethered. There she swung her saddle with expert hands,
whipped up the cinch, and pulled it with the strength of a man,
mounted, and was off up the gorge.

For the first few minutes she let the long-limbed black race on at
full speed, a breathless course, because the beat of the wind in her
face raised her courage, gave her a certain impulse which was almost
happiness, just as the martyrs rejoiced and held out their hands to
the fire that was to consume them; but after the first burst of
headlong galloping, she drew down the speed to a hand-canter, and this
in turn to a fast trot, for she dared not risk the far-echoed sound of
the clattering hoofs over the rock.

And as she rode she saw at last the winking eye of red which she
longed for and dreaded. She pulled her black to an instant halt and
swung from the saddle, tossing the reins over the head of the horse to
keep him standing there.

Yet, after she had made half a dozen hurried paces something forced
her to turn and look again at the handsome head of the horse. He
stood quite motionless, with his ears pricking after her, and now as
she stopped he whinnied softly, hardly louder than the whisper of a
man. So she ran back again and threw the reins over the horn of the
saddle; he should be free to wander where he chose through the free
mountains, but as for her, she knew very certainly now that she would
never mount that saddle again, or control that triumphant steed with
the touch of her hands on the reins. She put her arms around his neck
and drew his head down close.

There was a dignity in that parting, for it was the burning of her
bridges behind her. She drew back, the horse followed her a pace, but
she raised a silent hand in the night and halted him; a moment later
she was lost among the boulders.

It was rather slow work to stalk that camp-fire, for the big boulders
cut off the sight of the red eye time and again, and she had to make
little, cautious detours before she found it again, but she kept
steadily at her work. Once she stopped, her blood running cold, for
she thought that she heard a faint voice blown up the canyon on the
wind: "McGurk!"

For half a minute she stood frozen, listening, but the sound was not
repeated, and she went on again with greater haste. So she came at
last in view of a hollow in the side of the gorge. Here there were a
few trees, growing in the cove, and here, she knew, there was a small
spring of clear water. Many a time she had made a cup of her hands and
drunk here.

Now she made out the fire clearly, the trees throwing out great spokes
of shadow on all sides, spokes of shadows that wavered and shook with
the flare of the small fire beyond them. She dropped to her hands and
knees and, parting the dense underbrush, began the last stealthy
approach.

Up the same course which Jacqueline followed, Mary Brown had fled
earlier that night with the triumphant laughter of Jack still ringing
in her ears and following her like a remorseless, pointed hand
of shame.

There is no power like shame to disarm the spirit. A dog will fight if
a man laughs at him; a coward will challenge the devil himself if he
is whipped on by scorn; and this proud girl shrank and moaned on the
saddle. She had not progressed far enough to hate Pierre. That would
come later, but now all her heart had room for was a consuming
loathing of herself.

Some of that torture went into the spurs with which she punished the
side of the bay, and the tall horse responded with a high-tossed head
and a burst of whirlwind speed. The result was finally a stumble over
a loose rock that almost flung Mary over the pommel of the saddle and
forced her to draw rein.

Having slowed the pace she became aware that she was very tired from
the trip of the day, and utterly exhausted by the wild scene with
Jacqueline, so that she began to look about for a place where she
could stop for even an hour or so and rest her aching body.

Thought of McGurk sent her hand trembling to her holster. Still she
knew she must have little to fear from him. He had been kind to her.
Why had this scourge of the mountain-desert spared her? Was it to
track down Pierre?

It was at this time that she heard the purl and whisper of running
water, a sound dear to the hearts of all travelers. She veered to the
left and found the little grove of trees with a thick shrubbery
growing between, fed by the water of that diminutive brook. She
dismounted and tethered the horses.

By this time she had seen enough of camping out to know how to make
herself fairly comfortable, and she set about it methodically,
eagerly. It was something to occupy her mind and keep out a little of
that burning sense of shame. One picture it could not obliterate, and
that was the scene of Jacqueline and Pierre le Rouge laughing together
over the love affair with the silly girl of the yellow hair.

That was the meaning, then, of those silences that had come between
them? He had been thinking, remembering, careful lest he should forget
a single scruple of the whole ludicrous affair. She shuddered,
remembering how she had fairly flung herself into his arms.

On that she brooded, after starting the little fire. It was not that
she was cold, but the fire, at least, in the heart of the black night,
was a friend incapable of human treachery. She had not been there long
when the tall bay, Wilbur's horse, stiffened, raised his head, arched
his tail, and then whinnied.

She started to her feet, stirred by a thousand fears, and heard, far
away, an answering neigh. At once all thought of shame and of Pierre
le Rouge vanished from her mind, for she remembered the man who had
followed her up the valley of the Old Crow. Perhaps he was coming now
out of the night; perhaps she would even see him.

And the excitement grew in her pulse by pulse, as the excitement grows
in a man waiting for a friend at a station; he sees first the faint
smoke like a cloud on the skyline, and then a black speck beneath the
smoke, and next the engine draws up on him with a humming of the rails
which grows at length to a thunder.